I'm in my final year of nursing school and it's almost time to pick where I do my practicum. We are given the chance to pick our top 3 areas we are interested in and then paired with an RN to do an externship in that specialty.
I know that I'm interested in critical care because I am a thinker. I love to be challenged intellectually. The problem is, I suffer from an anxiety disorder so I'm worried that I might not be well suited for an ICU setting. I'm interested in NICU because I love babies but I also like being busy. Any other nurses out there who have an anxiety disorder and have been successful in ICU settings? I feel so discouraged right now because I don't know if I have what it takes to be successful anywhere because I fear my anxiety will hinder me from being a good nurse.
My ultimate goal is to get my NP one day as well. I'd love to hear from you all on your experiences or if you have any advice.
Definitely do what you feel is scariest. If you do it that way, it will give you an opportunity to learn how to cope with your anxiety. I'm fearful of nearly everything due to GAD and often, I find it easiest to step into new, unknown territory head first. The longer I think about it, the more anxious I become.
As a side note: only do what makes you comfortable though! I would recommend doing it this way, but it may not work for you.
Yes, I am seeing a therapist. I used to take medication and still do PRN. I only take it when really needed though. I also do yoga, although I haven't had much time for that with school.
Definitely do what you feel is scariest. If you do it that way, it will give you an opportunity to learn how to cope with your anxiety. I'm fearful of nearly everything due to GAD and often, I find it easiest to step into new, unknown territory head first. The longer I think about it, the more anxious I become.
As a side note: only do what makes you comfortable though! I would recommend doing it this way, but it may not work for you.
Thank you for the advice. I think I'm going to give the ICU a try for my practicum and if I decide it's too much, then I can always change to something else. I'll never know unless I try!
Yeah, my med surg rotation gave me so much anxiety but I didn't feel that way in ICU. The again, I've only had 3 ICU days so far. So it's hard to tell. I did a year of med surg first year of school. I hear med surg is great to get fundamental skills down but trying to juggle 5 patients at a time gives me anxiety just thinking about it.
I would say I'm a moderately anxious person. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of a disorder, but I almost gave myself an ulcer from anxiety during nursing school and seriously considered asking my doc for an anxiety med prescription because I was getting sleep deprived, high blood pressure all the time, feeling panicky constantly, etc.
All that said - I went straight to the ICU out of school. I knew from my time spent on med-surg floors that I could never handle the stress of juggling 7-9 patients at a time. Part of my anxiety triggers are things being left undone or not addressed, and I knew that would happen a LOT on the floor. In the ICU, yes, you have two very, very sick patients to handle. You will see a lot of death, a lot of very sad situations, undergo a lot of stress as you handle emergency health situations regularly. However, you also will have a team right there by your side going through it with you. The providers will be available to talk to face to face 99% of the time. When crap hits the fan, you will be surrounded by people who will help you give your patient the best possible outcome. I rarely feel as though I left things in bad shape when I leave work, even if my patient is in bad shape... I feel confident knowing I did everything I could for them because I only had to focus on them and one other patient.
The learning curve is steep and I've definitely felt a lot of anxiety and stress over the job at times (e.g., learning to participate in morning rounds with the whole team turned me into a damn basket case for a couple of weeks) but it's been manageable because I get a lot of satisfaction out of it and I can see how much I've grown and gained confidence. It's pretty cool and I think if you want to go for it, you should.
inthecosmos, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN
511 Posts
Definitely do what you feel is scariest. If you do it that way, it will give you an opportunity to learn how to cope with your anxiety. I'm fearful of nearly everything due to GAD and often, I find it easiest to step into new, unknown territory head first. The longer I think about it, the more anxious I become.
As a side note: only do what makes you comfortable though! I would recommend doing it this way, but it may not work for you.